The other day, somebody wrote about the FUEROS, saying that the Basques
served in the Spanish Navy. That simply is not true.
In July 1666, there was a problem of officers of the Spanish Navy,
when needing sailors, closing the Basque ports and asking the
fishermen and sailors to enrole in the Navy or pay a special tax. The
Government of Bizkaia protested to the king "because this servivce (The
navy) is volounteer and not obligatory".
In March 1674, The Government of Bizkaia made another protest: "The sailors
are not obliged to go to the Navy if they don't want
to, because it is a volounteer
act..."

FUEROS AND FUEROS

Our ancestors made a great mistake calling our ancestral laws Fueros.
Many counties, cities, regions etc. had also Fueros, but we cannot
compare our Fueros with these others. Why?
The Fueros in Spain (Fuero de Logronio, de Jaca, etc...) are concessions
that the King, as sovereign, made to cities, countiess etc. They are really
privileges, because their existence depends on the king's will. He can give
them, he can take them away, and the king gave them to
favour the population of a
zone.

But who made our Fueros? Not the king or the Lord. They were made by the
Basque parliaments, and the Lord, to be acepted as Lord had to promise under
the tree to respect and to fullfil them. Only after that did the Juntas accept
the Lord. Lets go with some examples:

.- In the time of Juan II of Castila, the treasurer of the king goes to
Bizkaia to collect the rents that the Fueros recognized to the Lord. The
Junta General answer that, as Juan II has not promissed under the tree, he
is not Lord of Bizkaia and he had no rights. As Juan II is at this
time a minor, his mother Catalina, Regent queen, promises in his name.

.- Time of the King Enrique IV (1471). He promises under the Oak, but he
takes many actions against the Fueros. So the Junta General decides to remove
him as Lord, and to name as their new Lord his sister Isabel (years after,
she becomes the Catholic Queen). Enrique IV sends an army to conquer
Bizkaia. The people of Bizkaia stop their internal civil war,
form a Basque army, and destroy the Spanish army in the
glorious battle of Mungia (1471,April 27).

.- In 1815, with Fenando VII, French ideas enter Spain, and the king
and his Prime minister Godoy begin planning to incorporate the Basque
Country into the Kingdom. A Special Comission is formed called Junta de
Abusos, and they make an inform: "...Que hay de comun con las demas
provincias de Espana? Nada absolutamente. Las leyes distintas, el Gobierno,
todo suyo, las contribuciones, ningunas, el comercio, sin reglamentos y
todo franco....etc....Como de esta suerte pueden considerarse una parte
integrante de la monarquia espaniola, si no estan sujetos ni a sus leyes,
ni a sus cargas, ni a sus obligaciones..?" The solution proposed is
clear: abolish our rights.

.- In 1351, August 1st. A peace treaty is signed between Bizkaia,
Gipuzkoa and England (Eduard III of England and the representants of
Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa). In this treaty there are also representatives of
Castilla, but in the treaty it is made clear that the King of England signs the
treaty with the representants of Castilla, Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa. The
treaty says that it is signed between "Gentz d'Engleterre y Gascoine....gentz
le dit roy de Castell ou del countee de Vizcay". In the treaty, each
article makes the distinction between the people of Castila and the People of
Biskay" (The term Biskai included the Gipuzkoans).

.- In 1482, a treaty is signed between Gipuzkoa and Eduard IV of England.
This treaty of peace is for 10 years and says that if the Kingdoms of
England and Castilla enter into war, it will not effect the relations
between England and Gipuzkoa.

.- In the treaties of Utrecht (1713) and Viene (1725) between the kings of
Spain and England it says that this treaty does not effect the ports of
Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa because they are not under the Castilian Laws.

.- In 1794 Gipuzkoa signs a treaty of neutrality with France.

.- In 1491 the Catholic kings send a letter to all the representants of
their consulates in Brugge and in this letter they clarified Bizkaia as
a "separated nation".

Now let's continue
with the Carlists wars. There are a lot of Spanish historians
(and of course many Basques among them) that deny the fact that these
Wars were national ones. They try to demonstrate that the problems with the
Fueros were minor, and the main focus of the wars
was the fight between the "Old
Regime" and the New one born after the French Revolution; that the most
revealing
fact that explains the problem is a question of burguesy and peasents and
so on (see the article of Mila, with the theories of Paco Letamendia).
Well, I cannot deny the importance of all those things, but I think that the
main problem was the national one. Here is some support:

LATAILLADE was an agent of the French Government in the XIX. He lived
for some
years in Donostia and he wrote some interesting informs to his Government
during the First Carlist War, making proposals to put an end to the Conflict.
He thought (the same as our great Chaho) that the Carlist wars
were a war to mantain the Foral regime, and that the mediation of France
was necessary
to put end to the war because it could be a danger for
the border.

I only have a Spanish translation of part of his inform, so I will
copy it in Spanish:

.-Describes the political sistem, and the freedoms of the Basque Country,
and he affirms that is the more free territory of the earth, that has been
always sovereign and independent from the Krone of Spain, And there won't
be in many time a Government in Spain, enough strong and inteligent to
surrender this people.

He says that the sovereign power of these provinces reside in their
"Diputados Generales" (except in Navarre, where the Viceroy has some
atributions), legally elected by their inhabitants.

.- In 1793, during the War between Spain and France (War of the
Convention), the French army invaded the three Basque Provinces, and the
"Diputados Generales" that wanted to save their citizens of the penalities
of the war and preserve their nationality and the integrity of their
Country, negotiated with the Chief General of the French Army, MONCEY,
making a treaty. The French would respect the nationality, properties,
laws, rights and neutrality of the Provinces. The Basque militias were
disarmed, and the Lord (the king), their ally, unable to protect those
great interests, since he is oblished by the pact, is abandoned to his own
luck.

.- In this war (1st carlist) the Provinces had sublebated, cause they are
afraid to lose their National Rights... Then he spoke about
Zumalakarregi " Although he fights under the Flag of D. Carlos, he is, over
all, a good Basque"

.- The interest of France is the neutrality of the Basque provinces. A well
built independence will make the border invulnerable, and in case of war
between France and England, France will find in the Basques not enemies but
allies.

.- Lataillade, remembering the proposals that GARAT made to Napoleon, in order
to create with the Basque Country (north and south) a "pillow-state"
between Spain and France.

BERTSOLARIAK ETA KARLISTADA

Now here are some small pieces of verse and popular songs of the Carlist
wars. They are taken
from the works of Haritschelar and Agirreazkuenaga and of
course are dated during the time of the Carlist war (I have respected How
they were
written).

Well I have enough material to write much more, but I think I am boring you.
I always have been against any violence, I am strongly against ETA, but the
problem of the violence is not a simple one. In this article we can see
how the problem of the violence began more than a century ago.
The solution is not to simplify things. Of course, to simplify is
easier. It is easier to think that some are cruel barbarians
asking for fresh blood and it is also easy to think of others
as traitors or spanish agents, planning how to destroy our people, or that
even others
are colaborationists of one or the other group, depending on who is
talking.....but things are more complicated. We are faces of the same die
and we need to do something together. The real difficult thing is
to understand the others. Of course, when I read some notes I am the first
to hate the author, and I am the first who needs to learn tolerance....

Best wishes to all of you

Xabier Ormaetxea

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